brave girl writes @bravegirlwrites - Tumblr Blog

A time when someone helped you.

Here’s what comes to mind:

I’m 27 years old. I live at 18329 6th Avenue in the old rambler with faded yellow paint and the driveway that needs fixing. It sits farther back than all the other houses on our street, underneath trees so tall I’ve never quite caught sight of the place where they reach up to touch the sky. There’s a small creek out back that runs thin and silent, giving sound to its slow trickles only when the world stops and closes in on itself in the dead of night. I often forget it’s there until my son Cooper will leave our play in the front yard and lead me to its edge in his slow, unsteady waddle. He likes to lose himself in watching the water bubble up and run on by.

We spend a lot of time outside, Cooper and me. Ollie too when she isn’t busy sleeping. We sit on the cool cement of the front steps and watch for airplanes overhead and roll around in the grass that my husband mows in careful, straight lines each weekend when he’s home. There’s a park down the street and we make our way there most days, our stroll along the sidewalk slow and peppered with stops so Coop can pet each dandelion. We never stay long. My sweet baby girl still needs to eat every couple hours and I’m uncomfortable feeding her anywhere that isn’t my own living room. Her bottles mark the hours, Cooper’s bedtime baths, the days.

Mostly, we wait. We wait for the weekend, when Daddy leaves his work to come home and make us a family again. We wait for the relief his returned presence brings, the reminder that we are okay. We wait to grow beyond the monotony of naps and bottles and diaper changes that have drawn our world in small. We wait in the middle of a life that is my every dream fully realized, all that I’ve ever wanted, and yet I’m miserable.

I live to see the shadows that dance around the front living room when the headlights on Jerod’s truck swing into view each Thursday night. The bright yellow beams reach out to me, cutting straight through the darkening night sky. I swear I can feel their warmth. He’s back again, I’ve made it through another week all on my own, and all is well again… until he kills the engine and the golden glow of the headlights is no more. Five days a week I spend each minute longing to see him, and yet our weekends together only seem to be driving us further apart. I resolve over and over again to stop being miserable, get a grip and welcome Jerod home at each week’s end with open arms, loving and warm and happy.

Instead, I fall apart.

I’m not taking care of myself, but only because I’ve never really been taught how. And also, I’ve never found myself worth the trouble. I’m struggling to settle into my new identity as a mother, struggling even more to find the energy inside of myself to meet my babies’ needs. Starting our own family awakened something in me, a darkness I worked so hard to avoid I thought it might have disappeared all together. No dice. I am increasingly more aware of the deep wounds from my own childhood still bleeding within me and it’s absolutely unraveling me.

I spend most weekends on the couch in pieces, exhausted after offloading all my pain and misery onto Jerod. He lets himself be swallowed up by my dark world so he can keep me company. We order take out for every meal and watch episodes of FRIENDS six at a time while the kids crawl across our laps. He isn’t happy and I know it. It’s a painful reality that sends me deeper inside of myself, the only way I know to try and shore myself up and feel somewhat safe. Each weekend together feels increasingly more heavy and hopeless.

We are invited to have dinner at my parent’s house one Friday, but I’m too worn out and broken down to find the will to go. The hurt inside of me is growing wild now and somehow I sense to stay away. Jerod goes ahead without me, taking the kids along with him in their matching Graco carseats. He’s not thrilled to leave me behind, but we both know he’s desperate to take a break from my never-ending pain and despair (and subsequent bitchiness). I do not leave the couch the entire time he’s gone, not even to find the TV remote or the charger for my phone. My nest of blankets and perpetual wallowing are a far cry from the deepest desires of my heart. I want to be a good wife, a good mom. A good me. I’ve never felt the sting of failure more.

Hours later, still laying in the same spot, I hear him opening up the front door and try to steel myself strong. I know he’s sick of me. Sick of my struggle. Sick of having to move on ahead without me. Sick of watching me be eaten alive by all this pain that I have no idea how to handle. Sick of my helplessness. I expect him to walk in and voice his disappointment that instead of trying to pull myself together, I’ve spent the evening letting myself sink further. Instead, he says nothing. He moves our sleeping babies from their carseats to their cribs in silence, and then makes his way to the place right beside me. I feel so unloveable and unacceptable I can barely look him in the eye. Hot shame pulses through me so fiercely I wonder if he can feel it sitting next to me. I tell him I’m sorry and then, still quiet, he reaches under the blanket and grabs my hand. My entire world turns upside down at his touch. Sitting there with him, assured of his love despite all of my darkness, feels like fresh air in my lungs after months of struggling to breathe. Jerod keeps holding my hand, giving me a safe, soft spot to lay my weary head and truly rest, and it’s some of the sweetest help I’ve ever known.

I haven’t been writing, but you already knew that. In the last couple of months my blog has produced exactly zero posts. Or rather I’ve produced zero posts, if you’re the kind of person who’s into the truth of the matter or whatever. In which case I better fess up: I actually have been writing. Just not very often. Or very well.

As always, the need to write burns deep down in my bones. Maya Angelou said something along the lines of there being no greater agony than bearing an untold story within you, and you know what? She was flat out fucking right. We all have stories, each and every one of us, and in my humble, far from professional opinion, we are all meant to share them. It’s just that mine seems to be forever stuck beneath the giant, perpetual lump in my throat. Either that or tied up in knots within the messy tangle of thoughts that is my brain. I guess that’s what you get when you learn to hide inside of yourself during your first few years of life and then keep the real you mostly covered up eternally thereafter.

But, whatever. I’m tired of letting the way things have always been have the final say in how things are now. Or any say at all, really. So I’m going to keep at it. Keep writing, keep trying to find my voice, keep trying to pry my story loose.

This is where things take an unfortunate turn. Looking back, it turns out I’ve never been more consistent in writing and posting than when I took part in that 31 Days of Writing challenge last October. You know, that thing I did where every single day I had to sit down and spend time answering some silly question and then hit publish no matter what. So, because I’m no dummy, I’m going to start doing that again, which means you are in for some seriously unrelated, incongruous and fluffy posts.

For starters, today’s - An accomplishment you are proud of:

When you think you are supposed to be perfect, it’s a wee bit hard to stop and pat yourself on the back each time you finagle things into going your way. I have never been good at receiving praise from other people, and I’ve been even worse at giving it to myself. Attention of any kind, even for a job well done, has always felt safest to me when held at bay. Say something nice about me to my face and I’ll avert eye contact and squirm inside my skin before you’ve even finished speaking. A little sad and pathetic, I know, and also no longer how I want to experience life. I’ve been talking with a friend lately about all of this and you know what she told me to do? She advised me to write up a whole list of past accomplishments that have made me proud and then collect pictures/mementos/knick knacks/whatever that symbolize each one, displaying them all together on a shelf in my living room because I guess I’m not weird enough yet.

Of course I haven’t done it yet because why work hard towards strengthening your sense of self when you can just do nothing and keep wallowing in self-hatred for the rest of your life? It is the family legacy after all. But it won’t be what I end up passing on down the line if I can help it at all, which I happen to think I can. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself ten thousand times a day until my brain relents and let’s it sink in. So, in that completely unsure/determined as fuck spirit, let me give you an entire list of past accomplishments that make me proud.

1. I jumped out of a plane once. Like, while it was flying high up in the sky and everything. 14,000 feet up if I remember right, which who knows? Something about being freaked the fuck out makes everything go a bit blurry. But I did it, complete with a trained instructor strapped to my back and a bellyful of fear. I even have the pictures posted on my now neglected Facebook page to prove it. 2. I have successfully completed the Whole30 diet (think Paleo but way stricter and no three ingredient banana muffins). Thirty days with no sugar, dairy, grains, preservatives, legumes, anything that’s been processed, or alcohol of any kind. Considering the fact that I can have the stomach flu and still be interested in what’s for dinner, this may very well be the most impressive thing I’ve done in my life thus far. Feel free to slow clap.

3. I’ve birthed two human beings, first growing them in my belly and then delivering them into the world with no small amount of effort. Sure, there were drugs involved (and plenty of them!) but still… 4. This one time I swam with sharks, and even though there wasn’t a single second of it that I found scary because a giant metal cage was involved, it’s definitely the kind of thing you have to put on a list like this one. 5. A year ago I enrolled myself in a week-long class at UCLA called The Writer’s Studio. There were fifteen of us gathered each day in the heart of LA’s Westwood Village inside the school building’s windowless fourth floor room. Everyone had either been published or was making a living off their writing in some way or another. An award winning memoirist. A screenwriter. Magazine editor. Lifestyle blog creator. And then me, of course, completely out of my league and also completely loving it.

meditate, meditate

I’ve started meditating.

I mean, it’s just been the four times so far, but don’t most beginnings look a tiny bit like next to nothing?

I thought I’d share my experience thus far in case you too want to become a newbie meditator who has no idea what she’s doing.

Step 1: Awake to alarm at 5:00am. (Note: If you think changing your alarm from the factory setting bullhorn blare to a sound called ‘Ripples’ will make waking up less traumatic, you are dead wrong). Frantically paw at your phone until the offensive noise comes to a stop so as not to rouse your sleeping husband, and then force yourself to slide out of bed and stumble into the living room.

Step 2: Set up your meditation space. Grab whatever wadded up afghan happens to be spilling out the top of the blanket basket to the left of the fireplace and fold it into a square roughly the shape of your butt. (This step can be skipped if you are not a cheap ass and want to purchase a meditation cushion, which apparently is a legit thing). Begin to burn a stick of the ‘Meditation’ incense you bought at the grocery store using the same cherry red lighter that lit up all your joints before you renounced that shit for the twentieth time four days ago.

Step 3: Settle into your body. Sit on your makeshift cushion with your legs crossed and your butt hanging off the edge ever so slightly so that your knees are lower than your waist. Pretend there is a string coming out the top of your head that is being pulled up toward the ceiling and pray that this somehow helps you correct two plus decades of abhorrent posture. Relax your face, rest your hands on your thighs and begin to focus on your breath.

Step 4: Check in with yourself. What emotions are you experiencing? What are you thinking? How does your body feel? Tune into your own spirit. Allow yourself to acknowledge everything that comes up without judgement. After all, almost anyone would be a bit disgruntled after being kicked out of bed by ‘Ripples’.

Step 5: Set timer for twenty minutes and begin. Use your own breathing as the focus for your meditation because that is what it said to do in the instructional book you borrowed from the local library titled How to Meditate. Sit still and straight and continue breathing, refocusing with every single exhale because your mind keeps wanting to think about sending texts and shopping for new dishes and what in the hell is the meaning of Life?

Step 6: Sit with yourself. You do not let yourself become lost in fantasy, dreaming of If Onlys. You do not let yourself become lost in yesterday or ten years ago or the unknown of tomorrow. Your thoughts touch these places many times over, daring to invite you for an extended stay, but each time that blasted, inevitable thing called thinking fills your mind (roughly every 1.5 seconds) you simply return to focusing on your breath. You think you happen to be quite terrible at this meditation thing but you let that thought slide right out of your mind and choose to be gentle with yourself instead.

Step 7: The timer goes off and you are done. Set a goal for yourself to meditate for thirty days in a row and include some sort of bribe to make things interesting, say a meditation cushion. Stand up and stretch your way into the kitchen. Time for coffee.

waiting

What does it mean to wait upon the LORD?

No, really. I’m seriously asking. And not just for a friend.

The Bible talks about it a bit (read: a lot) and as far as religious jargon goes it’s ranked right up there with “God is good” and “All the time.”

I always thought it meant some kind of surrender. Like, Okay God, I’m just going to take a step back here and twiddle my thumbs while I wait for You to work Your magic.

This worked out for me zero percent.

Turns out “waiting on God” was a way for me to remain a victim, to absolve myself of all responsibility and take it easy by simply staying stuck. Be proactive or work hard to better myself? Nah, I’m good, thanks. God’s got this.

This morning my Scripture reading (aka the daily verse on my phone app) mentioned “those who wait upon God”, and ever hunting to get to the bottom of things, I reached for a dictionary.

- to be available or in a state of readiness - look forward eagerly, continue in expectation

I’m no Bible scholar. In fact, I’ve yet to manage reading it all the way through (Leviticus, you’re killing me Smalls), but I think these definitions are more so what God had in mind.

Waiting on God is not humming along with your hands in your pockets, biding time until something Big happens. There’s action involved. It’s an entire way of living.

It’s going about my day, using the brain and the body God gave me to create a life of Love and goodness and beauty, all the while keeping my heart wide open to Him. It’s simply being myself, the person He made me to be, and then remaining sensitive to His voice, His leading.

It involves being filled with belief, and not the blind faith/misguided hope kind. I’m talking about the kind of belief that is real and big and not afraid to wrestle. The kind of belief that doesn’t have to have everything all figured out. That braves the unknown and always persists, remaining rooted in humility.

It’s a positive mindset. It’s looking at the shit in myself and in my life and then reminding myself that God sees it all and knows it all. That He is for me and has good plans for me.

I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. It’s a bit of a crapshoot, this business of trying to understand Who God is and how He works. What else can I do but continue to draw close, watching intently with the hope to catch glimpses of His beauty?

becoming

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” - e.e. cummings

Awareness is a tricky fellow. Sometimes it comes all at once, as in Oprah’s “A-ha!” moments, a force so compelling it splits all of life into before and after. With blinders, without blinders. And sometimes it takes awhile to build momentum. For years the realization that I was miserable inside the middle of my beautiful life grew slow and steady. The swelling backbeat of my heart pushing me towards Truth. I eventually determined to face the pain that kept me from myself, but not because of any one epiphany. My subconscious had simply worn me the fuck down.

Awareness, for better or worse, cannot be undone. It became too painful, staying stuck somewhere I didn’t belong, and so what could I do but move forward? I became brave because I had to. It took me awhile to rally myself away from the carefully constructed cover I’d pulled up tight over the truth of myself, but eventually I dared to step inside of my own skin and stay put for awhile to see if I couldn’t find out what was the matter.

I thought facing myself would be a bit like bringing the entire mess of me before God and sitting back while he peeled me like an onion. Hard heartedness? Unbelief? You’re outta here! Fears? Doubts? Low self-esteem? Be gone! A cutting away of sorts, painful to be sure, but beautifully cut and dry. Every defense disrobed until only my authentic self remained.

It’s no surprise I was wrong given my track record.

Turns out becoming is a messy business. Confusing as hell, too. There’s nothing by the book about it, no plain and simple. No methodology. I thought I could simply hand myself over to God in some sort of concrete, one-time-only surrender and endure the discomfort of Him changing things up a bit until I was good as new. I was going to work God over like the ultimate self-help program, snatch my healing right out of His hands if only I could crack the code of how He worked, what He wanted me to do and who He wanted me to be.

What a small god I had.

I’ve since exchanged the whole idea about the onion for that of a snake shedding its skin. I realized simply plopping down in the middle of my life and waiting for God to take away my every rotten layer was getting me nowhere. Instead I’m meeting Him in the struggle, in the wrestling, in the heart-sinking, stomach-turning terror of the unknown. My life laid bare is a series of fumbling moves to glom onto the Light and Love that are ever and always seeking me. It’s a shit show, really. There’s nothing neat and tidy about it. But God’s in the mess, the same way He’s in the depths and the dark and the foulest of pits. The same way He’s in everything Good.

painted rocks

I have lived in western Washington for over half my life now and I’ve learned a thing or two from all the rain. Getting wet is inevitable, for one, so there’s really no need to arm myself with an umbrella at all times. It can stay stashed in the trunk of my car underneath the pile of Amazon boxes I’ve been meaning to recycle or remain forever lost in the back nether regions of my coat closet, useless and unused.

I’ve also learned that in the wintertime when the rain relents, it’s go time. Never mind that it may still be 35 degrees outside, so cold I’m surrounded by smoky clouds of my own breath. The moment I notice that the puddles outside are still and smooth as glass, no longer rippling with split second bullet marks from the rain’s merciless falling, I’m outside. It may seem a bit overboard, staying on such high alert during the darker, drearier months, ready to pounce on any scrap of sunlight or clear sky Nature sends my way. But I’ve yet to find a better way to ensure that I do not spend the whole of winter stowed away inside.

Which is why I found myself at Fish Park the other day, one of December’s first, dropping bits of Chex Mix into my children’s open, waiting mouths like they were baby birds. The miserably cold air bit at their hands each time they braved the outside of their tiny pockets, rendering them helpless to eat the picnic lunch I’d packed all on their own. Without a single raindrop in sight though, I’d led the charge to explore the outdoors while we had the chance.

Fish Park sits close to our house, just a two minute drive through the heart of our small town’s main street to get there. Void of any swings or slides, or the splash of primary colored handprint murals that seem the hallmark of any thoughtfully constructed community playground, there’s only wide open wetlands and winding paths throughout. My kids love to walk here, feet stomping fast upon the gravel spread smooth in neat lines, bounding down the boardwalks built up over every mushy place. Mostly we look for rocks.

Our community has a program where people paint rocks and then hide them in any number of public places for others to find. We’ve planted plenty of our own stony masterpieces, but nothing is more fun than stumbling upon the surprise of one that’s been left behind by someone else. I usually spot them first, slight specks of bright shooting through the sandy browns of nature. The kids will stop sword fighting with sticks or hunting in the tall grasses for any manner of wildlife and follow my hints to the end, where the newfound treasure lays waiting to belong to them. (Except for the two times when I’ve kept my mouth shut and snagged the rock for myself. One purple hued, with ‘Be Free’ brushed boldly across the top; a second, emblazoned with a giant red bow and the words ‘Love Yourself’).

During our last visit, I knew the freezing cold and never-ending string of rainy days meant any continued searching would be fruitless. No one was taking the time to carefully conceal rocks just for the fun of it in these conditions. Still, as my kids busied themselves seeing how far they could stray from me while remaining in my line of sight (family rule #4), I couldn’t help but scan every inch of ground around my plodding feet in hopes of spying just a bit of color. With each step my pursuit grew both in purpose and in passion, and though barely twenty paces from the trailhead, I completely lost myself in seeking. I mean, I was really going for it, even attempting to administer the law of attraction I’d read about in my husband’s battered copy of The Secret. (I will find a rock. I know it. I will find a rock.)

I feel compelled to side step my little story here and fill you in. As a young child my parents led me to Jesus, and in so doing, gave me Everything. All the other stuff that came along with being raised in a conservative, evangelical Christian home was simply part of the package. Spiritual warfare was a whole big thing and I had a pretty far-reaching knowledge of demons, hell and (worst of all!) backsliding before my age was even in the double digits. I never let my eyes scan the horoscopes in the newspaper for more than a passing second in fear that some black voodoo magic might lob onto me and never let me go, and at birthday parties when someone pulled out a ouija board, I’d go sit in the corner by myself and wait out all the debauchery until the game was over. I understood that dark, demonic forces were very real and that I could never be quite sure which MTV show or secular song they lurked in. Every single religion besides Christianity, even Catholicism (sorry guys, so close), was also lumped into Bad Stuff That Isn’t Good Or True. The lines drawn in the sand for me were hard and fast. Buddhism? You might as well be a witch.

This is why employing the power of my own mind and using visualization as a tool in order to scout out a painted rock in the park made me laugh at myself. Emily of 1999 (hell, even the Emily of 2012), would never be caught participating in such sinful schemes. Back then I wouldn’t have opened up the front cover of The Secret, dismissing it without even reading it because it wasn’t the Bible and that made it Bad. God’s clued me in on some of my own ignorance since then, and as He’s continued to draw me closer and closer to Himself, a lot of the ‘hard and fast’ has fallen by the wayside. A lot of the fear, too.

So I walked and I walked, looking high and low all over Fish Park, trying to maintain a responsible enough watch on my kiddos while envisioning the rock I just knew lay waiting for me to find it. The sight of it formed crystal like in my mind: small, smooth, rich glossy paint, the word ‘YOU’ sprawled across the top. Suddenly I was searching for myself, or rather some way in which to commemorate the hunt that’d become the whole of my life in this last season. A sense of urgency began to grow within me, more excitement than panic because I knew the rock would turn up, even if it wasn’t till my very last step before hopping in the car to leave.

Except it didn’t. There were no painted rocks. And then it was time to go.

The sun had teased us the entire time we were there, shining forth in spurts and slivers for minutes at a time, until finally it seemed to cover itself in clouds for good and we all realized just how frozen cold we were. Immediately, we hightailed it back to the parking lot where our car waited with its glorious warm heat. While the kids piled in and fumbled to do their buckles with their numb, little fingers, I stooped down and scraped at the packed dirt, prying free a rock. It took a nearby stick to get the job done, and my coat and hands were dirtied in the process, but still I picked it up and brought it home with me.

Later, after a quick rinse in my kitchen sink and time to dry, (and also a special trip to the store just for a new art brush), I painted it. Blue, both bright and deep, with the word ‘YOU’ scripted on top in cool, clear white.

When my husband came home from work that evening, I shared my search with him, including a description of the rock I’d been visualizing in my mind. Before I was able to add the detail of my disappointment, we were interrupted by a whole host of whines and groans when the kids came into the kitchen looking for dinner. Our conversation picked back up after I’d started heating up the Costco package of pulled pork (did I mention I’m a gourmet chef?), but by then we’d moved on to another subject.

It wasn’t until much later, as I was readying to head to bed, that my husband came across the rock I’d painted laying on the windowsill in the kitchen. Calling out to me from across the house he said, “Oh hey, you ended up finding your rock, your YOU!”

And by then I’d realized that I had.

welcome to me

I think it's high time I introduced myself. I know there are a lot of you out there who already know me. I mean, you know my name, you've seen my face. Our kids go to school together. We've exchanged smiles on Sunday mornings at church, maybe even shared a snippet of conversation. But not very many of you actually know me know me and this is entirely my fault. I'm a wee bit guarded (we're talking mile high walls here, people) and I have a history of choosing isolation over interaction. Like, ten out of ten times. The vulnerability required for real relationship has always scared the shit out of me and it's seemed safer to stay in hiding. No chance of being rejected or feeling like a burden to those around me that way. And, come to find out, no chance of experiencing Life in all its beautiful abundance. Going it alone has been both exhausting and straight up painful and I’m more than a little over it. So, here goes nothing…

Hello, I'm Emily. I am a beautiful, kind, lovable and loving soul, and also, I'm a bit fucked up.

I could easily be talking about my lifelong battles with an eating disorder and major depression, the hospitals and treatment centers and medications that mark my past, but I’m not. For many years I blamed these struggles for everything less than good in my life, until God called me deeper (that seems to be His thing) and I slowly began to realize they were more symptom than source.

I've always had the hunch that something wasn't sitting quite right within my own soul, and for most of my life I tried to keep the pain of "I am not okay" buried down deep so as to maybe lose it completely (fingers crossed). In a startling show of outright foolishness, I believed all would be well if only I could get my shit together, lose ten pounds and just be perfect already goshdangit. I also thought getting everything I ever wanted might go a long way in healing the parts of myself that felt a little less than.

Spoiler alert: it didn't.

I met and married a man who was more than I could have ever hoped for, and I don't mean that in any sort of rote, romantic way. My husband has flaws and an affinity for pushing people's buttons, but he's also hardworking, determined, loyal, positive to the max and pretty much the friendliest dude on the planet. We made two babies together (you're missing out if you haven't met them) and I was given the gift of staying at home with them while they grow up. But even with my dream life fully realized, I still could not shake the sneaking suspicion that all was not as it should be inside my head and my heart. Life was good but I was miserable, and I had no idea why. This tiny seed of awareness eventually led to the understanding that I needed to take a closer look at myself, that the pain I'd kept at arms length all my life had to be pulled up close and dealt with.

So I spent the next couple of years numbing out because fuck that.

I’ve always had a hard time with feelings, mostly because I just never really learned how to handle them. My growing up years, the ones that made me who I am, were filled with a great deal of goodness and almost no emotional support. There were homemade dinners, trips to the pumpkin patch, Sunday school lessons and Barbies by the boatload, but no one helping shape my sense of self or teaching me that I was loved without condition. At home the tension ran thick and left little room for any of my own thoughts, feelings and experiences. There were no arms spread open wide in my direction, no safe place for me to land when life got hard.

Somewhere along the way I learned it best to quiet my voice and keep my needs to myself so as not to be a burden.

I'd say I blame my parents, but after this last season of no longer avoiding the pain and instead wading through the muck of all my old, unattended wounds, the truth that I do not has settled into me both steady and deep. The ones from whom I come did not receive the love they needed when they were young and though they wanted to make things different when they brought me into the world, they never quite turned the tide. My parents could only give me what they had and so my own spotty self-worth and the holes in my heart make me ache for them as well.

Eventually the pain of staying the same and keeping everything inside became too great. A few years ago I determined to leave the darkness that walled my world in far too small and I stepped out into the Light. I claimed my voice. I claimed my life. I confronted past abuse and drew healthy boundaries. I took responsibility for myself and for my children and began the work of real forgiveness.

I had never been more vulnerable. Or powerful.

I was no longer in survival mode, barely holding on, just trying to get through each day. I was actually living and it felt like freedom. Even when the search for the bottom line of myself brought up some uglier bits (my piss poor coping skills say, or the staggering scope of my emotional stuntedness) it only led to deeper peace and joy because I had nothing to prove and everything to learn.

Then grief happened.

I saw it coming, the loss that pierced me to my core, and still the sheer force of its blow stunned me into a complete stop. Both in slow motion and all at once grief reared its ugly head, taking hold of my entire life. And then it swallowed me whole. Devastated, every bit of me that had been fighting for health and healing gave way to grief’s cold chaos, let it seize my every breath until there was nothing left of me. I was completely capsized, adrift in a sea of pain, lost in my loss. Grief left me deeply disoriented and struggling to fumble forward.

Which brings me to today. I wish I could skip straight to the good stuff. Summarize in neat little sentences all the ways in which happily ever after came true for me despite the shit beginning. Contrast the darker parts with a bit of magic or something. Abracadabra, everything is great now! But I can’t. The truth is that today the happy ending feels as far off as it ever has. I’ve tugged on my bootstraps and somewhat pulled myself back up, though there are plenty of days when I humor my heartache instead of moving on. I am still smack dab in the middle of becoming, a sputtering mess of fits and starts and gritty determination to keep on in the Light. The struggle is real and the journey is so terribly fucking long.

Turns out shedding an entire self, the one I was taught to be, the one that believed all kinds of lies and was filled with fear, and then learning a whole new way of being is tough work. And yet God continues to be near and lead me on.

MOM TIP #1

(Disclaimer: Forget the grain and read these bits of advice with an entire Costco-sized canister of salt. Seriously, I am a great mom and also a screwy one. We can only do our best.)

Growing up there was zero direct communication in my home, which is why I spent my first four years as a mom dropping passive aggressive hints to my husband that I needed more alone time while keeping my fingers crossed that he’d somehow read my mind. He never did of course, but it’s no big deal now because I’m learning that being straightforward can work like magic. He’s a super loving dude, and so when I finally put words to my need for more “me” time and then actually said them out loud to his face he quickly obliged.

I now have two mornings a week all to my sweet, sweet lonesome. I try to get up at five most days and use the quiet hour or two before everyone else wakes to write and pray, but since I could happily do those things for all eternity, the sound of feet shuffling down the stairs always comes before I’ve reached a stopping point. Except now on Tuesdays and Thursdays my husband is officially the one in charge of morning cuddles and breakfast and the drive to school. Meanwhile I get to hole myself away with my journal and gel pens and simply bliss out or read the stack of books by the side of my bed that only keeps growing. I can pour my heart out to God and actually have the time to sit and listen back, or really just do whatever the hell I want. It’s sheer grace, this new gift of regular time to myself. A wide open space for something beautiful inside of me to bloom.

Which is why I had to pause and think for a moment when I started to wash the dishes this morning after my husband left to take the kids to school. The question wasn’t even fully formed in my mind before I knew the answer. No, this was not the best way to spend the time set aside for me to refuel and let my cup be filled. So I stopped, put down the sponge, and after asking myself just one question decided to do something else. It was so damn effective in helping me make better use of my time that I thought I’d share it with you as my first official MOM TIP.

It’s simple, really. If you’re ever in the fortunate position of having a bit of time to yourself but have no idea how to make the most of it, ask yourself this: “Could I do whatever it is I’m doing while fielding three dozen questions per minute from my two preschoolers?” If the answer is yes, don’t do it. For example, it may not be the most fun ever, but I am in fact capable of washing the dishes while my legs are being groped and my eardrums full on assaulted, so N-O to that. (Or F-U, whichever’s more your flavor). But forming whole, complete thoughts, one after the other and then writing them down? For me that requires a certain amount of quiet and so I’ll choose to spend the time I have to myself doing that.

There it is, TIP #1, take it or leave it. Who am I to tell you when you should or shouldn’t tackle your household chores? Maybe getting the mountain of clean laundry that’s taken over your living room couch folded or reorganizing the linen closet that turns into a complete disaster every time your kids decide to build a fort is exactly what you need to do. Or maybe what you need is to not give a flying fuck for once about whether or not you are making the most of your time or practicing self-care exactly right, in which case forget everything I’ve said.

dear god

Write a letter to God.

Dear God,

I know now that I had you pegged all wrong. I thought you were good, you know, because you’re God and all, but I also thought you were impatient and never quite pleased with me. You had your demands, that I be holy just like you and never stop praying, and the people who taught me about you had all their own black and white fine print about how to make you happy. I had never quite understood how to be in relationship with someone outside of meeting their needs and trying to be good enough. I was missing you completely, focused on following the rules just so and scared to look you straight in the eye for fear I’d be met with the cold, hard stare of rejection I’d already come to know so well. Meanwhile I was one big mess of pain and fear and I hated myself for it. For so long I tried to make it go away, tried to push all the pain and fear down deep enough that it might get lost forever. I tried to work you over like some self-help program, twist your arm into making all my struggles disappear like magic. I saw you as some sort of miraculous method, as if I could crack the code of who you were, do things just right so you’d be cajoled into bringing healing to my every broken place. I tortured myself trying to figure it all out, how to find freedom and peace and every other good thing I thought you were keeping from me because I hadn’t yet fallen into line. I had no idea that my pain and fear and every other thing weighing me down and making me sick was all that you were looking for, that the truth of me was the only thing you wanted. God, I’m so glad that who you are is not at all who I thought you were. I’m so glad that you are love, that you are safe. That there’s no method or magic or measuring up. There’s just you, bigger and more beautiful than I could ever know, wanting to be with me and know me as I really am. You want all of me, pain and fear and confusion and doubt and rebellion included, and not just tiny snippets but the whole. Thank you for showing me that you love me even at my darkest. Thank you for meeting me in the depths, for showing yourself in the black holes of suffering and grief. In the past I’ve missed your faithfulness, your nearness, because I’ve been too busy looking down at all of my brokenness. But you’ve been there the whole time and though I’ve been slow to listen, you’ve never stopped calling me to look up. There’s no coldness in your eyes, no rejection waiting for me when I stop the work of hating myself and trying to be better in order to look you full in the face. You are my God and I have nothing to prove. You made me, I come from you, and you know everything about me. You see all of my light and all of my dark and still you call me beloved. There’s no need to clean up my act before drawing close, no sense in trying to hide and let the darkness keep my faults and failures covered up and out of sight. There’s no being right or good enough, there’s only saying ‘Here I am’ and opening myself up wide.

“God doesn’t want something from us. He simply wants us.” - C.S. Lewis

712:2 What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

(Disclaimer: I didn’t select this prompt. I tried looking through the book, but when my fifth and sixth and seventh random selections didn’t lead to even the slightest bit of inspiration, I tossed it over to my husband and asked him to choose something for me. He responded with the following question so lightning fast I can’t help but wonder if he didn’t even bother to look at the book but decided to just torture me instead. I’m onto you, Jerod Henning…)

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

I’d ask for help and lots of it. Like, all the help in the world, you guys. I could use it. I would say I’m secretly a mess inside except it’s kind of no longer a secret. I missed out on some important life lessons (how to regulate emotions or be secure in your own sense of self, for example) which explains the myriad of ways in which I find myself in the present day to be nothing short of emotionally and relationally retarded.

Growing up, things felt safer when I kept my thoughts and feelings to myself. I don’t mean to say that I never talked or pouted when I didn’t get my way (although I definitely erred on the side of super quiet), it’s just that I’m hard pressed to remember a time when I let my insides come out without first giving thought to how it’d be received.

Somewhere along the way I caught on that my needs were little more than one big heavy burden. This was never communicated to me outright but I picked up on the truth of it all the same. Sharing my problems or asking for help untangling the thoughts in my head proved to be too much to handle for those around me, and so staying silent was the clear winner when it came to figuring out just what I should do. I stopped reaching out all together once it became apparent that the loving arms I desperately wanted to hold me when I was upset or confused or in pain weren’t always going to be there. It was my job to make sure that everyone was okay (unofficially, of course, it’s not like there was a paycheck involved or anything).

I am 30 years old now, and I’ve learned a thing or two about myself and the way life is supposed to be. It’s funny though how what we learn as youngsters has a way of rooting itself so deep inside of us we can’t help but stay stuck no matter how much awareness and wisdom we gain in later years. I have blonde hair and blue eyes and my basic needs as a human being are an absolute monster of a burden. Do you see the lie there? I do, and yet it’s still there trying to pass as a viable part of my identity. Fear makes this so. The fear of being met with the same debilitating hurt I experienced when I was younger and risked being vulnerable, being myself, and was met with harsh rejection. The fear of giving voice to my wants and needs, the very desires of my heart, and somehow making others Not Okay in doing so. The fear of being a burden, of hurting someone else by simply being who I am.

So, if I wasn’t afraid… I’d say “Fuck you.” And I don’t mean in the way that I’ve been saying it to myself over and over within the past several years, filled with helplessness and hopelessness in the face of every single time I’ve set out to fight against the lies that seems cemented inside the core of my being. I mean screaming it at the top of my lungs to the lie itself, to all the tension it turns out I was storing up inside all along as I tried to take it away from those I loved most. I’d say it to the lie that my basic needs as a human being are burdensome to others, that it’s not safe to ask for help or open myself up to people who love me and care about me. And when the lie didn’t listen I’d hike up my big girl panties and go out into the world like it wasn't even a thing.

I’d show it who was boss, I’ll tell you what.

712 More Things to Write About: Take one

What in the actual living hell am I going to write about? I ask myself this each and every time I sit down at my keyboard with the intention to hone my craft and create sheer genius with my words. Write31Days with all its rules and guidelines and structure spoke to me, but it seems when left to express myself freely I nosedive. I’m tired of sitting down to my computer, filled with emotion and experience and the burning, insatiable desire to write but absolutely no clue where to start. So I’m starting here: 712 More Things to Write About, a book by the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto that my brother picked up for me on his last visit to Powell’s Bookstore in Portland. (If you’ve never visited this establishment, OMG you haven't even lived, I swear). Each day that I make time to write, I’m going to randomly select one of the prompts found within it’s pages. There you have it, my new master plan. And since roughly half of them are nothing short of straight up weird (Imagine robots take over the world, and also you’ve just been jilted by a longtime lover. Go.), I’m giving myself the freedom to pick at random a second or third time before settling on one if need be. Drumroll, please…

When did you taste something you thought you hated, only to change your mind and decide you liked it?

Funny how pure coincidence can be timely as hell. I was just watching an episode of Daniel Tiger on PBS Kids earlier today with my two beautiful babes that highlighted this exact topic. Cuddling close, we listened to no fewer than eighteen rounds of the same sing-songy insight that we should all try new foods (specifically vegetables). You know, because they might taste good.

My kids didn’t buy it. I mean, they loved the song, and I’ll never get over the way they shake or nod their little heads in response to Daniel’s questions because why wouldn’t their favorite animated character on TV be talking directly to them? But at three and four years old vegetables of any sort are entirely not their jam. Watching Katarina Kitty Cat turn up her nose at bell pepper slices, only to declare them her new favorite treat once she’s made to try them is not going to change their minds one bit. Nice try, Daniel Tiger. A for effort. Don’t worry, my kids will no doubt remain obsessed with you. Your dad works in a clock factory and you get to ride the trolley all by yourself after all.

When it comes to encouraging my kids to broaden their culinary horizons, it probably doesn’t help that I happen to be a picky eater myself. And by probably I mean I know for sure. I can be quick to give up trying to make them take a teeny taste of the root vegetable medley I made off of Pinterest because it looks gross to me too and the feeling of outright disgust is mutual. I have no problem serving sweet potatoes or broccoli four nights in a row because when you find something you like, why not get comfy and stick to it like glue for the rest of your life? At least that’s my motto. Which may explain why I began my response to this particular prompt with Daniel Tiger and not some real life experience. Embarrassingly enough, I can’t think of a single example of trying a previously eschewed food only to decide I feel differently about it.

I am a grown ass adult so I can be reasonable from time to time. I hate seafood of all kinds, but if I’m invited over to someone’s home for dinner and they serve me blackened salmon, I am going to shovel as many bites as I can stomach into my mouth and then thank them for feeding me. I feel confident in promising this though: the day I decide fish tastes delicious is the day that all of hell freezes over. I have tried sushi many, many times now (funny how everyone thinks I don’t like it because I haven’t tried their special recipe yet) and the last time I tried to choke down a raw bit of tuna with an uncooked quail egg cracked over the top it was just as nasty as I thought it’d be. The same goes for sundried tomatoes, coconut flavored anything (Almond Joy is the lone exception, because duh, candy), honey, tofu and kale. I have tried all of these things more than once and subsequent tastings have done nothing to change my mind.

What can I say, I know what I like. And clearly, what I do not. It’s one of my greatest joys as a grown up, the freedom to eat whatever I want, even if that happens to be an apple with peanut butter for both breakfast and lunch or leftover pizza two nights in a row. I’ve made peace with my pickiness. Sorry Daniel. I’ll keep putting in a good word with the kids though.

How you balance work and rest.

Ha! I don’t. At times I feel so imbalanced it’s almost like there’s two of me. Emily the Brave and Emily the Tired.

Emily the Brave is one tough, hardworking cookie. She wakes up each new day to the sound of her alarm, pushing past the pain that wants to keep her nestled in bed, hiding beneath the covers. It’s still dark outside when she rises and quiet all throughout the house. She makes herself a cup of coffee, black just the way she likes it, and settles into her favorite red armchair to meet with God and beg Him to heal her hurts. Some mornings there are tears before she’s even said a word because the day can often feel too hard though it has barely started to unfold. But Emily the Brave never stops looking for Love and Light and so she presses on, even on the days when God seems to stand back and stay quiet. She fights like hell, white knuckling her way through the battle raging within her, trying her best to find freedom and peace and rest. Oh how she tries. She tortures herself trying.

Emily the Tired is a big, fat quitter. She’s angry that she has to try so hard, that all the trying never seems to end or make anything better, so she says “Fuck it” and let’s herself sink deep into the relief of giving up. She’s not at home when she makes her bed in the depths, but sometimes it seems to be the only rest she is able to find. She’s a bit of a shitshow, the core of herself wounded beyond measure from the mindfuck that was her childhood. Emily the Tired is no dummy though, she knows the darkness only brings destruction in the end, and so exhausted she somehow rallies and goes to work again.

#write31days

What sounds fun to you right now.

Yikes, you guys. Grace, please. That’s all I ask. I meant to write earlier today, but then I got really into carving pumpkins with my kids and somehow the whole afternoon disappeared while I was scooping out slimy guts and making jack-o-lantern magic. (They turned out awesome, by the way). And now it’s late and my mind is done working until tomorrow, so this post is going to be some kind of bullshit. Eh, oh well.

1. an entire day of roaming the aisles of Powell’s bookstore in Portland, Oregon by myself with a gift card worth roughly all the money in the world 2. dancing in downtown Seattle until the wee hours of the morning, preferably to hip hop music and also preferably half drunk so I can feel like I’m really good at it

3. reading a book so good I keep turning the pages even if I’ve had to pee for the last twenty minutes 4. being alone in my house when it’s clean 5. opening up a brand new puzzle that’s just the right amount of hard and sitting down to work on it with a steaming hot cup of tea 6. going for a bike ride 7. cuddling on the couch with my husband while watching an episode or four of Friends 8. taking an art class or a writing class or most any kind of class, really 9. going to watch a comedy show 10. Taco Bell, because eating is fun to me. Sometimes the most fun.

#write31days

The three people (living or dead) you would invite to a dinner party.

First things first. Scratch the dinner party. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for inviting people into my home to share a meal together. It’s just that I’m more of a paper plates and takeout kind of girl, and if I’ve been given the power to raise the dead for this little soiree, I think it’s safe to assume I can also opt for a coffee table strewn with pizza boxes instead of something more formal. Fingers crossed the guests don’t mind.

Emily Dickinson is first on my list. A thousand times over. (Insert lengthy pause while I struggle to find words suitable to describe my love for her here). I’m serious, you guys, I’m obsessed. I love poetry because of Emily Dickinson. I know what it is to read words crafted by someone else’s hand and find bits of my soul that have never before been named because of Emily Dickinson. She was a genius and a visionary, a beautiful gift of a person. Also, she was familiar with pain and a lot of it was tied into her relationship with her mother. In a letter penned to one of her many literary mentors she once said, “I never had a mother. I suppose a mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.” So yeah, we’d have a lot to talk about.

I’d also ask Peter to join us. You know, the one from the Bible. His story is one of radical change and I think it’s absolutely fascinating. Peter left everything behind to follow Jesus, only to eventually deny Him three times over, and then he ended up being one of the boldest preachers of all time. He was a straight up emotional roller coaster and so again, quite a bit to talk about.

Lastly, I‘d invite my younger self, my inner child. After welcoming her with warm, open arms, I would make sure she got the most comfy spot on the couch and had her fill of the cheesiest slices. And then I’d give her every bit of love I’ve fought to find inside of me. She’d have my full attention. I’d hold her and tell her she was beautiful exactly the way she was, that she was created by a God who called her good and only wanted her to be herself. I would tell her that it was all going to be okay, that she was so much stronger and braver than she could imagine and that one day she’d find Love.

#write31days

If you were stranded on a desert island, what would you miss most about your current life?

Can I be really honest with you? Being stuck on a deserted island all by my lonesome sounds pretty damn delightful right now. I know, I know. I should probably answer this question with some sort of talk about missing my children’s laughter or how their tiny voices are pure perfection when they call out “Mama.” Or the way it never stops being funny to me when my husband says its my turn to be the big spoon in bed and how I’d miss that and every other little thing he does that reminds me I am not alone in this crazy ass world. But right now? At this very moment? I just want to call a time out and take a break from life and if I could do it all by myself please and thank you that would be great.

I’m just tired is all. I’m tired of having to throw so much frigging energy into each new day in order to simply be okay, to find some sort of halfway healthy baseline. I want to be living my best life, fully engaged and present and kicking negativity in the butt while I take step after step towards The Promised Land of emotional and relational health. I want to thrive but it’s still so many days of pulling at my damn bootstraps just trying to get through. And I’m tired. Maybe a little bit sick, too. Sick of the struggle, the never-ending fight for freedom and peace and love and rest.

So yeah, can we make this happen or what? Any old God-forsaken island will do, as long as I’m allowed the following requests: two dozen 1,000 piece puzzles (no kitten montages or fairy landscapes, please), all my favorite teas, the rest of the second season of This Is Us in advance, each and every book I’ve been meaning to read, several hundred bags of Boom Chicka Pop kettle corn, and my laptop (complete with charger) so I can finish creating the photobook that’s taking me a literal eternity to put together. Oh, and also, there would have to be a pizza place within close enough range that they’d deliver.

#write31days

If you were presented with a time machine, where would you go?

I was going to write about the present moment, the here and now, the very place I struggle so much to seize and embrace and enjoy. I was going to write about facing the pain I’ve carried since my earliest years, the pain that’s haunted me day in and day out and held me hostage within myself, a prisoner to my past. I was going to write about the future God has called me to, the dreams He’s spoken into my heart that often seem so far away and impossible, and the way I can lose myself in trying to figure out how the hell it’s all going to happen. I was going to write about the small strides I have taken recently in claiming my life and the present moment that are actually not all that small because it turns out to be fully engaged in the here and now with your whole self is EVERYTHING. And then I was going to say something along the lines of thanks but no thanks to the whole idea of a time machine and leave it at that, heading off to live out the next moment and then the next.

But then I thought about Jesus.

If someone gave me a time machine, like an actual legit one that wouldn’t blow me up or get me lost in some black hole, I’d most definitely travel back to 30 AD or whenever the heck it was that Jesus was walking around the earth. Assuming the machine delivered me somewhere near His general vicinity, I would immediately begin to run around and cry out His name, bellowing into every nearby crowd and cluster of people within sight. My search would be so impassioned that I just might end up in a Bible story: The Parable of the Girl Who Ran Around Like a Crazy Person. I think I would recognize Him as soon as I laid eyes on Him, not because I know what He looks like but because I imagine His gaze would make me feel so deeply seen and loved that I couldn’t help but know it was my Jesus.

I don’t really know what would happen after that. It wouldn’t matter though. You know, because I’d be standing before the greatest Love of my life and everything. He’d welcome me, open up His arms and let every bit of me fall into Him. Maybe I’d ask Him some questions and maybe He’d have some answers (or none at all), but most definitely everything would be okay inside of His embrace. And I don’t think I’d ever want to go back.

#write31days

Your most important short and long term goals.

Goals freak me out. When you make one you officially have some skin in the game. They’re kind of like the starting line. Shit gets real. I know they’re supposed to be all about bettering yourself, focusing your efforts and unicorn rainbows and what not, but my brain sees a goal and the alarm bells immediately start blaring. Suddenly there’s a clear cut way for me to fail. When you’ve spent your life under the impression that you do not measure up, it’s quite terrifying to think about setting a goal and then not reaching it. Some might say this is where the power of positive thinking comes in, but it happens to be rather difficult to drum up optimism when all you’ve ever known is negativity. It’s hard to shape the day to day into our dreams, the vision we have for our lives, without a goal or two (or eight hundred) though, so fear and negativity be damned. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

Short term goals: Stay sober. Don’t cheat myself out of the opportunity to process through all my shit and grow and as a person by seeking easy (and super temporary!!) relief in beer or weed or half a pepperoni pizza. Resist the urge to numb out and stay present to myself, those around me and the rest of the whole wide world. Be kind to myself and give myself the love I deserve. Don’t let my brain beat myself up and follow my heart. Stay connected to myself and then seek out connection with other people. (I’m in the market for friends, people. Spread the word).

Long term goals: Raise my two sweet babes into healthy, integrated adults who love themselves, are self-assured, engaged in the world around them and eager to live out their own, unique passions. Raise myself to be the same. Be published. Reach people and bring light and love into their lives with my words.

My short term goals are simple in that while I may be tempted at times to tell them to fuck off, I know what I need to do to make them happen. My long term goals, not so much. I have no idea how I’m going to pull those off, only that God does and that can be enough for now.

#write31days

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